Howl
by Auddball
Summary: Dave gets assaulted one full moon and a strange "animal attack" saves his life... JohnDave, City AU where John is a werewolf and Dave runs a bar with Dirk. M for violence, no smut. This ship is like my writing security blanket.


_It's been, what, a year and a half since Homestuck ended? Eh. I figured I'd dust off the fic writing for some old shipping and werewolves. This first chapter is long, sorry about that._ _Warning for violence, especially this chapte_ r.

 _Enjoy~_

*

I had found myself on the tail end of some bar fights before. Usually, my brother would take care of the more rowdy patrons at the end of the night, but my tendency to bullshit beyond the point of no return without noticing hadn't made me a lot of friends among the more aggressive drunks.

That night was different. I was cleaning up just after last call, taking the bottles out to the recycling in the alley.

The alley was, admittedly, the creepiest shit I had seen. We weren't exactly on the best side of town, and the street was barely lit as it was. Bro took the idea of us staying a "genuine" dive way too seriously; the only light we had was the casual green porch light just outside the front door. Shit thing lit next to nothing.

That night, I felt a bit more comfortable with the light of the full moon shining through the smog of the city. I even admired it for a moment, which may have been my biggest mistake.

"Hey."

The voice was level, but not friendly. Simply a statement. I didn't immediately notice that I was being spoken to until I heard it again.

"HEY you little shit!"

The man could barely stand, but from where he was I could tell he was much taller than me, and wider.

I should've just ran inside.

"You need something?" I asked instead. I was on-edge, but it was hard to tell which of these guys just had a natural scariness to them drunk.

The guy stepped forward and I stepped to the door. Then I saw more of them, prowling around their friend. Around me.

I ran for the door, but it was too late.

Before I grabbed the handle, I had been pulled back by one of them.

A circle of gruff laughter surrounded me as I tried to escape his grip, finally able to land a swing on someone's jaw. When he went down, two more grabbed me. One punched me right in the stomach.

I doubled over as my shades hit the ground. I had gotten used to wearing them in the dark, but my vision did improve a bit to the point of being able to punch another guy in the face, earning one right back from one of the others.

I was in deep. I struggled for a pocket knife I kept in my pocket, but the leader gripped my hand and shoved me to the ground. The sharp sound of the knife skirting across the concrete rang through my ears as I began to panic. I screamed out, for my brother, someone, and was quickly met with my attackers knife, dangerously wavering against my neck. He was looking right into my uncovered eyes, and I'd never felt more defenseless in my life.

"I heard you were a freak," God his breath stank as he spoke. His slurred voice made the words all the more venomous "But I always thought it was for different reasons" Where he moved his hand emphasized his meaning, his jagged yellow smile sending me into shock. Of all the scenarios I'd imagined, I had never thought of this. Regardless, a fight was a fight.

Without thinking, I kicked as hard as I could. He had moved in a way that freed my legs for a split second and I used the opportunity to hike my leg into his groin as fast as possible.

He fell back in pain and I stood up, still in a daze. His cronies took no hesitation before proceeding to grab and beat me again. I struggled out of their grip for a moment before he stood up again, gripping my throat and slamming me against the wall. As my vision began to darken, my mind started racing.

Dirk must've heard this by now. I'm going to die. Rose would kill herself over this. Through my loud swimming thoughts, I barely heard him speak again. "I am DONE with this, you little-"

A sound ripped through the air I could barely describe. Monsterous wasn't even a start.

Half the guys ran away as the growl echoed through the alley. At some point, I fell to the ground, gasping for air. I didn't even try to stand back up.

Something that looked like a bear, no, bigger, started tearing through the men. It was solid black. A wolf? I'd seen wolves. They were bigger than I'd expected, but this was different. It bounded around on four legs, but it didn't look like it needed to. A few more men ran, but by now I was focusing my remaining consciousness on this creature.

It's fur shone in the light as it tore at the remaining parts of the group, including and especially their leader. It didn't even seem to eat anything off of them, only attack. It was almost ethereal.

As my vision faded to black, the last thing I saw were two huge, glowing, pale blue eyes, boring through my own.

They looked... Human.

"...Broken ribs, he has a concussion," I heard a voice say as I came to "And he's lost a lot of blood, but otherwise he should make a fully recovery." A doctor, probably. He left the room soon after. I kept my eyes shut, but I realized I was in a bed with something in my arm. Hospital. Great.

"Whatever attacked those guys seems to be a blessing in disguise" A disgruntled voice said. Dirk.

"Don't say that! He's lucky to be alive with that animal around."

Rose. Oh god, Rose was here.

"He would have gotten worse in those guys hands! I say the polar bear or whatever shit came by was better than that." I could _feel_ Rose roll her eyes.

"First of all, polar bears don't LIVE here,-"

"We have zoos, don't we?"

I chuckled painfully as I opened my eyes, squinting in the light.

"So I'm funny, little man?" Dirk said playfully as he sat beside the bed. "How's it hangin'?" His voice was eerily sympathetic.

"Whatever I've got in my arm is making it a lot better than it probably is." I joked.

"Do you remember anything?" Rose asked. She didn't seem amused.

"Animal" I said. "Big. Black."

"I told you it wasn't a polar bear" Rose snapped back at Dirk. "What about the men?"

"They... They tried to... Do things." I heard Dirk's breath hiss as he leaned back in his chair. Rose shot him a look. "Mostly they just beat me up. I kicked their leader in the dick." That made Dirk laugh out a little too loud. I laughed too and winced. There were the broken ribs.

"You need to rest. We'll go tell the doctor you woke up." Rose said, grabbing at Dirk, probably to argue more about my mental state or something. He scuffled my hair, setting my shades (cracked, but intact, like the rest of me I suppose) on my lap, and strode out, as was family custom. I gripped Rose's arm.

"Rose. The animal. It was... Giant. Bigger than the men..." I don't know why I was inclined to tell her after Dirk left, but the look that she gave seemed to justify it.

Something flashed in my half-sister's violet eyes, but she just squeezed my arm and walked back over to sit on the bed for a moment.

"Get some rest, Dave." She said, kissing my forehead, leaning in to whisper diligently, "We'll talk about that later."

*

The hospital sent me home after a little blood, some tests, and stitches. Apparently there's not a lot they can do for broken ribs, so they just wrapped my chest and called it good after the x-ray. My chest was covered in bruises and Dirk looked like he wanted to punch something. The interns steered clear of him.

A group of cops had asked me some questions about the group of men that escaped, but I was in a daze and couldn't really help them. Apparently they found animal prints at the scene. Wolf, they said. Wolf my ass.

For a few weeks I sat bored in the bar as Dirk worked the main shift, not letting me work. Rose stayed to help, but stayed all enigmatic about her mood at the hospital. She seemed... Alert. Watching.

Finally, a month later, Dirk let me do the day shift. I was still in pain, but the immense boredom was enough to make me beg to do something. It made sense he let me do this. These shifts were slow, sometimes almost dead.

So it was a surprise when I heard the bell ring while I was prepping cups. I heard an unfamiliar, half asleep voice rasp from the door.

"You serve food here?"

"It's shit." I said, still not looking his way.

"But you serve food."

"Yeah." I laughed. Poor guy was probably hung over after some college bender. He sounded young enough.

As he sat at the bar, I caught a glimpse of him. Definitely young, almost my age, but he didn't look like the regular crowd to stumble in here. He pushed thick black-frame glasses up his nose as he scanned the menu and tugged down a messy graphic crewneck.

I would card this kid if he ordered a drink, but it looked like he might already hate the idea of booze forever. Despite that, he was about the cutest hungover nerd I'd ever seen. My brother would spout on about hipsters if he saw him here, but the poor guy looked ravaged. Least I could do was feed him.

"Find anything?" I asked as quietly as I could, but he still winced a little at the noise.

"Eggs. Bread. Would be nice. Please." He said, exhausted. There was a gruffness to his voice, but a softer tone, what seemed to be his natural voice, in the 'please'. As he set down the menu, I saw his eyes.

A panicked memory flashed through my mind when I recognized the color reflecting back through a mess of jet black hair.

Blue. Pale blue. Staring right through me.


End file.
